


Hands

by KSilverland



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Character Alphabet Challenge, F/M, Gen, Haven, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 22:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4894195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KSilverland/pseuds/KSilverland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A part of the Dragon Age Character Alphabet Challenge. Prompt: H is for Hands.<br/>Lavellan reflects on the difference in her parents hands and what it says about each of them. In turn, the Commander's hands catch her eye, and she wonders: what more will his hands tell her in the months to come?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands

Her mother’s hands fascinated her as she sat by the fireside. She was too big now for her mother to do her hair--her braids were getting better, only they just had a habit of falling loose during weapons practice--but she still watched as her mother worked with Felsi’s blonde curls, a pout on her lips. She was twelve now. He first hunt was coming soon and her mother shouldn’t be braiding her hair. Yet she drew her knees to her chest all the same, and imagined herself in Felsi’s place.

“Rough day, da’len?”

“Papaaaa…”

Her father settled next to her, blue eyes bright under tawny brows. His wheat-colored ponytail fell over his shoulder as his gaze flicked from his daughter to his wife, who answered the glance with a soft, private smile. Her hands never wavered and her fingers continued to dance through the locks of the girl infront of her.

“If you want her to braid your hair, Rasha--”

Rasha’s nose crinkled and she pulled her knees closer with a frown. “No. The Keeper braiding your hair is for babies.”

Her father chuckled and mussed her hair, her lopsided braid falling free of its messy plaits. The brown tresses curled about her ears and into her face as the child glared up and swatted at her father’s hand.

“You know she’s your mother, right?” Her father fixated her under his steady gaze, and she fought not to squirm. “She’d braid your hair if you asked.”

“No. I’ll just cut it.”

The elder elf blinked down at his daughter. “That seems a bit extreme, da’len.”

“Don’t call me that.” She huffed a sigh and propped her chin on her knees. Across the fire, her mother tied off Felsi’s hair with a deft twist of her fingertips. “It’d be easier.”

“Easier to manage? Or easier to not be jealous?”

She glowered up at her father, but said nothing.

He nudged her with a toe. “Well, whatever you decide, Rasha, I will still love you and muss your hair.”

The girl snorted, but a small smile curved her lips all the same. “I’ll never get my braids to stay if you do that.”

“Your mother’s seem to withstand the assault.”

She snorted again, and lapsed into a brief silence. “...Do you think Mamae would mind? If I asked her?”

Her father chuckled and ruffled her hair again, much to his daughter’s chagrin. “Go on, da’len. I don’t think she will mind.”

She stuck her tongue out at him as she stood, only to pause and press a swift kiss to his cheek. “Ma serannas, Papa.”

“I didn’t do anything, da’len, but you are welcome.”

She shook her head and skipped around the fire, to her mother’s side. When she settled at her mother’s feet, the Keeper’s cool fingers in her hair, she wondered at the difference. Where her mother’s hands tingled with cool magic, her father’s were always as warm as the campfire.

\--------

One of the first things she noticed about him was his hands. They were broad, usually folded over the pommel of his blade, or hidden when he crossed his arms. Even when he used them expressively, they were steady, direct, and always moved with purpose.  
The first time she witnessed his hands unmoored was the first time she sought him out of her own accord. Where Cassandra was stifling in her faith, Cullen was...respectful. Oh, he was as faithful as the next shem, joining the others for the evening service and speaking the prayers by heart, but he actually listened when she told her advisors, again, that she was not a Herald, of Andraste or any other god. He had only called her the Herald in formal company, and even quipped with her when the Chancellor returned to their doorstep. It was...nice. Different. Pleasant, even, not to have the Chant shoved down her throat like an unwanted meal.

That particular day, she had found him on the training field, a report in hand while a messenger fluttered at his elbow. He greeted her on her approach and passed the report off. She told herself that the twist in her gut had nothing to do with the color of his eyes, and rather more to do with the full weight of the shemlen’s attention on her and her alone: any one of the People would feel uncomfortable with the weight of a human’s--a Templar’s--gaze on their person. Yet she couldn’t help but watch as his hands came to life as they conversed, as he commended their cause and touched on what they could achieve.

Hope. He had hope.

It was only when she smiled at him--a true, proper thing she hadn’t worn since...before, that his hands stuttered. Their steady intent fled as one hand went to the back of his neck and the other fluttered in a mid distance, over his blade, in the space between them. Then he blushed. She found the break in his facade...interesting, doubly so when his mouth quirked up in a way that crinkled the scar on his lip and made her gut flip in a not wholly unpleasant manner. She couldn’t shake the smile, and it had nothing to do with the way he stumbled over his words, or the way his hands groped at empty air until another report was offered and he latched on to it like a lifeline. Nothing to do with that at all--she merely grinned at a button well pressed.

The whole affair made her wonder, however: Are his hands as warm as his smile?


End file.
